US President Donald Trump speaks, flanked by US Attorney General William Barr (L), during the daily briefing on the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in the Brady Briefing Room at the White House on April 1, 2020, in Washington, DC.

US Attorney General William Barr is coming under pressure for dropping the case against former national security adviser at the Trump administration, Michael Flynn.

The decision, made in spite of securing a guilty plea, is resulting in outrage from Democrats and other critics.

"The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed - about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn," former US President Barack Obama said in an audio clip released by Yahoo News.

In his 2017 guilty plea, Flynn confessed to lying to the FBI about interactions with Sergey Kislyak, Russia�s ambassador to the US, before Donald Trump took office as president.

"And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That�s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic - not just institutional norms - but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk," the former president said. "And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we�ve seen in other places."

‘Endangering 50-year independence�

According to newly uncovered documents, FBI agents mishandled the investigation into Flynn during the so-called Russia probe, which sought to unearth Moscow�s intervention in the US 2016 election or collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, but to no avail.

"I�m doing the law�s bidding. I�m doing my duty under the law, as I see it," Barr told CBS News in an interview Thursday.

US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff also warned Thursday night on MSNBC that the Justice Department�s "independence" is in danger.

"I think we lost 50 years worth of ground in solidifying the independence of the Justice Department after Watergate," the California Democrat said. "The common denominator between these two cases - Roger Stone and Mike Flynn - is this: Both men lied on behalf of the president."

SOURCE: PRESS TV

LINK: https://www.ansarpress.com/english/17217

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